Last year, Nayar stepped down as CEO and then as vice-chairman of HCL, India’s fourth-largest software services provider, to devote more to philanthropy through his Sampark Foundation even as he advises several companies on their strategies.

Vineet Nayar walks into his new office in a pair of blue jeans and a blue-and-white check shirt. It's a simple ground floor space in a building next to his home in Noida, east of Delhi, most unlike the swanky HCL Technologies office where he served as CEO until January. But Nayar isn't complaining.